


Not As They Seem

by Setcheti



Category: E.R., Return of the Killer Tomatoes, The Magnificent Seven (TV)
Genre: Crossovers & Fandom Fusions, F/M, Magnificent Seven AU: ATF
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-08-24
Updated: 2016-08-24
Packaged: 2018-08-10 19:14:00
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 3
Words: 10,342
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7857709
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Setcheti/pseuds/Setcheti
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Team Seven is having a bad day. And things are only going to get worse...for six of them.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> _Return of the Killer Tomatoes_ is one of my favorite silly comedies - and it shares an actor with the M7 TV series and one with ER - so it should be pretty obvious how this crossover AU came to be. Thanks to backesk for letting me know that this story hadn't made it into the archive yet, and I've tacked on a never before posted extra chapter.

Buck dragged the handcuffed prisoner into the interrogation room and shoved him toward a chair. Chris came in right behind them, followed by the remainder of the team, and took the seat opposite. “You’re going to tell me why you killed that man, you son of a bitch, and you’re going to tell me right now!”

Ezra looked him straight in the eye.   “It had to be done. I tried to give you my reasons at the scene…”

“There’s no reason for shooting an unarmed man in the back!” Larabee snapped. “And you’d have had the other two if we hadn’t stopped you, it would have been three homicides instead of just one. You didn’t even have a reason to draw on them in the first place!”

“If you’ve already made up your mind then why are you asking me?” Ezra shot back. With an effort, he reigned in his temper; that particular approach had already given his volatile team leader an excuse to slam him up against a wall and then to hit him, although he thought the hard right cross may have been for shooting the supposed bodyguard in the back. He couldn’t be sure, though. “It wasn’t what you think, Chris. If you’d just give me a chance to explain…”

“I’m not interested in hearing you try to squirm your way out of this,” Larabee interrupted again. “And you’ll call me Mr. Larabee - we aren’t friends and you don’t have the right to use my first name.” Ezra flinched visibly at the correction; Josiah and Vin did too, and JD just stared in shock. “What I want to know is what those guys had on you, did they know you were dirty or what? Maybe you were afraid they’d say something and the wire would pick it up, was that why you wanted them dead?”

But Ezra had said all he was going to say. Buck’s cell phone buzzed just then and the surveillance expert stepped aside to take the call. A moment later he was back. “That was the cleanup squad, Chris,” he said. “Seems we’re missing a body.”

“What?! Where the hell is it?”

“Well if they knew that it wouldn’t be missing,” Buck snapped sarcastically. “Whoever took it is a real joker, though, they left a pile of rotten fruit or something in its place.”

Ezra slumped back in his chair, but his poker face was back in place and none of what he was feeling leaked through it. “Yeah, a real joker, that’s one way to put it,” Chris ground out. “But now we know the little bastard has a partner, and once we catch him it will all be over. Now get this piece of shit out of my sight, go lock him behind bars where he belongs.”  

Buck immediately pulled Ezra up out of the chair and dragged him to the door, but surprisingly the smaller man resisted this time. “You’ve placed me under arrest, I’m entitled to one phone call,” he insisted.

Chris and Buck both scowled, but Nathan spoke up before either of them could express themselves in a less than verbal manner. “He’s right, Chris, we’ve got to keep this on the up and up so we don’t have to worry about technicalities later. You want him to go down, right?”

By way of response Chris yanked Ezra out of Buck’s grasp and dragged him back over to the table, slamming him down into the chair by the battered phone. “I’m staying right here,” he snarled. “The law says I have to let you make the call, it doesn’t say you get to do it in private.”

Ezra just shrugged and picked up the receiver, dialed in a number and waited. When the other end was connected he began to talk very fast. “Uncle Wilbur, it’s Chad.   We’ve got a problem…yeah, they’re here.   One, but some others got away…no…no, it wasn’t anything I’ve ever seen before…listen, I don’t have much time to fill you in, my team leader put me under arrest and this is my one phone call.   Next stop from here is a holding cell.   Can you get hold of Uncle Sam?   Okay…no, I’ll be okay, it isn’t the first time I’ve spent the night in…” He rubbed his jaw and shot a glance up at the fuming Larabee hovering over him. “Yeah, but it’s okay…no really, it’s okay, I’ve had worse.” He grinned suddenly. “Yes, I realize that, but I’ll be okay. No!   No, you’re needed down there, you have a business to run. Yes, I will – I’ll call you as soon as everything’s straightened out. Okay…okay…I will, Uncle Wilbur, you too. Thanks, bye.”

Chris yanked the Southerner up out of the chair so fast that he didn’t have time to hang up the phone, the receiver clattering down into the cradle and almost bouncing out. “And just what was that all about?”

Ezra gave him an unreadable look – the one he was famous for. “You’ll understand tomorrow, Mr. Larabee. Now if we might proceed on to my place of incarceration…”

“I’ll put you in a cell when I’m damn good and ready to.” Chris shook him hard. “I want to know what all that double-talk on the phone was about!”

“And I told you you’d find out tomorrow.”

Chris shook him again and then shoved him away violently; with his hands cuffed Ezra had no way to help himself and collided with one of the hard plastic chairs, ending up in a tangle with it on the floor. Nathan started forward but Larabee stopped him. “No, the little bastard isn’t worth it. Buck, drag his sorry ass down to Holding and sign him in, tell them no visitors allowed period. I’m gonna go tell Travis what happened and I want the rest of you to get to work on your reports; the judge will want to see them and we’ll be needing them as evidence.”

He herded all the other men out of the room, leaving Buck behind. The surveillance specialist sighed and walked over to Ezra, who was still on the floor, then reached down and hauled him up by one arm, ignoring the smaller man’s hiss of pain. He didn’t say a word as he led his teammate down to lock him up and Ezra didn’t say any to him either; there was really nothing left to say.


	2. Chapter 2

The next morning the remaining members of Team Seven were surprised to see Judge Travis stalk into their office with a look on his face that spelled trouble for someone. “Larabee!”

Chris came out of his office wearing a puzzled scowl; the puzzlement was recent, but the scowl was the same one he’d had since the previous afternoon. “Problem, Judge?”

“Yes, you could say that.” Travis folded his arms across his chest and glared at the team leader. “The FVI is here for Standish and I want to know why I wasn’t informed of their involvement earlier.”

“I didn’t know they were involved,” Chris said slowly. “Why would the FBI be involved with this? Even if it’s connected to the allegations in Atlanta, we have custody…”

“F _V_ I,” Travis corrected acidly. “And their jurisdiction supersedes ours, custody is irrelevant. They’re waiting downstairs at Holding now, they insisted on being there when we went to get Standish and I’m insisting that all of you come as well. I expect you to be right behind me.”

As soon as the elevator doors had closed on the judge the room erupted into a babble of questions. Josiah’s deep voice finally cut through the confusion. “FVI stands for Federal Vegetable Investigations,” he explained. “They’re a covert branch of the federal government that was formed after the Great Tomato Uprising forty years ago.

Everyone goggled at him. “But that’s, that didn’t…” JD stammered.

“It’s an urban legend,” Chris snapped. “It must be some scam, I’m surprised Travis fell for it. Well, we’re going to turn it around and ram it down that slick little murdering bastard’s throat. Let’s go.”

To everyone else’s shock, Josiah grabbed the volatile leader’s arm and hauled him around so they were face to face. “It was all too real,” he growled down at the startled man. “I was there, I saw it with my own eyes. And the FVI is no joke either, so you’d be wise to watch your step with whoever’s here.”

The big profiler stalked over to the elevator and the other men followed, silent now, with a fuming Chris bringing up the rear. Once downstairs, however, he brushed past them and went straight to the guard at the desk. “What’s the report from last night?” He shot a suspicious look back at Josiah. “Did anyone try to get in to see Standish?”

“No sir, no one came down here,” the guard told him nervously. “The evening report said they noticed him doing something odd in his cell not long after he was brought down that ended with him yanking on the bars and letting out a yell, but when they asked over the intercom he said he was just popping his shoulder back into place so…”

“What?!” came a deep, rumbling voice from behind them. A large, heavyset black man pushed through the scattering of agents to glare down at the hapless guard. “Why wasn’t a doctor down here before that happened?”

“N-no one called for one, sir,” the guard gulped. He flipped back to the previous night’s sign in sheet and pointed to the last entry. “Uh, Agent Wilmington brought Agent Standish in at four fourteen pm, and at four twenty-two written orders came down from Agent Larabee that no one but himself was to be allowed to approach Agent Standish for any reason. He…he told the night guards he was okay, sir; they hadn’t known he was hurt when he was brought in, but if he’d asked for help they would have called Agent Larabee to get permission.”

The large man grunted. “You boys didn’t do anything wrong, son,” he reassured the frightened guard. “How long ago was breakfast for your prisoner?” The young man swallowed hard and shook his head. “I see. Why don’t you go take a break, son, looks like you could use one.”

The guard looked to Travis for permission and then bolted. The black man turned and glared at the judge. “Is withholding food and medical treatment standard procedure here?”

Travis passed the glare off to Larabee. “No, it isn’t, and the guards know it.”

“The guards follow the orders they’re given,” the man shot back. “Pin the blame where it belongs, Judge. Now we’re going down to get the boy and let me tell you he’d __better__ be all right. Have someone unlock these doors immediately.”

“I can do it, Judge Travis,” JD volunteered, slipping into the spot the guard had just vacated and very pointedly avoiding looking at his team leader. He pushed a few buttons and the door in front of them slid open. “Do you want me to use the intercom to wake him up?”

“No,” the strange man ordered. He checked his watch and frowned, then walked through the door with a firm, fast stride. The man’s companions, a shapely, beautiful woman in her early thirties and a dark-haired man about the same age, breezed past the staring members of Team Seven to follow and Travis aimed one final meaningful look at Larabee before falling in behind them. Chris frowned and then motioned to his men to stay put while he stomped after the group; Josiah and Buck both ignored the silent order and came along anyway.

The electronic lock on the cell door clicked as they reached it and Ezra opened his eyes. Seeing his visitors he sat up with a small wince and smiled in open relief. “I wasn’t sure how fast you’d be able to get here.”

“Not fast enough, apparently,” said the dark-haired man as he and the woman quickly entered the cell. He loomed over the still-seated undercover agent while the woman sat on the cot next to him and enveloped him in a careful hug. “Okay, the shoulder and what else?”

“Just bruises and maybe a cracked rib – and these have gotten fairly uncomfortable.” Ezra held up his wrists to display the handcuffs that Chris had put on the day before. “I was able to loosen them a little but I couldn’t get them off, they’re a newer design.” He leaned farther into the woman’s embrace while the man loudly and with much swearing demanded the keys to the handcuffs. “I missed you, Tara.”

“And I missed you, Chad.” She captured his lips in a passionate kiss that he returned wholeheartedly.

“Need I remind you two for the millionth time that you aren’t alone?” the other man demanded sarcastically, releasing the cuffs and throwing them across the cell to bounce off the wall. “Sheesh, I thought that once the two of you’d been married for a while you’d bank the fire a little. Now kindly pry yourselves apart so I can have a look at the damage.”

“Sorry, Matt,” Ezra panted, leaning back against the cement wall to give his friend better access. He didn’t look or sound particularly repentant, though. “I’d have thought you’d be used to it by now.”

“Oh, I am, believe me,” Matt snorted, probing the bruise on Ezra’s cheekbone while Tara unbuttoned his shirt. “Things are a little different when my wife is halfway across the country, though.” He ran an experienced hand up through the other man’s thick hair. “Hit your head?”

Ezra closed his eyes. “I don’t have a concussion, Matt.”

“I didn’t __ask__ if you had a concussion, I asked if you’d hit your head,” was the acerbic response. “Never mind, either you hit your head twice or you’re mutating into something else back here. Lumps aren’t too big, though. Now for the rest…” He ghosted his fingers across the colorful bruises on Ezra’s left side and frowned. “Yep, it’s cracked all right, bet between that and your shoulder it hurts like a sonofabitch too.”

“You’d be right about that.” Ezra sat up with a small groan and started rebuttoning his shirt, only to have Tara swat his hands away and do it for him. “Nothing some aspirin won’t take care of. Could we go get something to eat when we leave this place, though? Because I must admit I’m absolutely starved.”

“Well, that’s probably because you haven’t eaten since some time yesterday,” Matt said with an angry glint in his eye. “C’mon, buddy, let’s get you out of here.”

They carefully helped Ezra to his feet and the three of them headed for the door; Chris tried to protest but a look from Travis shut his mouth. Ezra’s dimpled smile blossomed again when the big man stepped forward and frowned at him. “Son, I thought you told your uncle that you were okay? This don’t look like okay.”

“Most of this damage was incurred after our conversation, unfortunately.” Ezra sighed and shook his head. “What happened to me is irrelevant, however. There are Greenies loose in the city and we have no idea what we’re dealing with because all the evidence was swept away like so much refuse at the scene...”

“We’ll deal with the Greenies later,” the older man interrupted him. “I don’t consider what happened to you irrelevant in the least, Chad, and neither does the FVI – we look out for our own. Matt, is he okay to sit through a meeting while we hash this out?”

Matt’s jaw set. “I’d rather he didn’t.”

“I’m fine,” Ezra overrode him. “I at the very least need to attend in order to present my report to the judge here and to tender my resignation.”

“That’s true,” the older man agreed with a sigh of his own. “All right then, we’ve got better things to do than stand around down here. Judge Travis, let’s get this over with so we can get our boy home.”

“Yes, let’s.” Travis hesitated, looking over the united front presented by the FVI director and his people and feeling…disappointed; he’d thought that was what he had with Team Seven, and if he’d been right none of them would be standing here right now. “There’s a conference room nearby, we’ll use that one so Agent Standish doesn’t have to walk back upstairs.”

“We’d appreciate that,” was the reply. Travis gestured for his own men to precede him out of the holding area, and a glance back showed him the large black man enfolding the undercover agent in a gentle hug which was being carefully returned with one arm. Disappointment took on the distinct tinge of bitterness as he looked forward again at Chris Larabee’s stiff back.

The table in the conference room was large so no one had a problem finding a seat. Ezra came in last with his good arm draped over Tara’s shoulders and hers wrapped around his waist, and they continued to hold hands even after they sat down. The obvious intimacy between them snapped the last of Chris’ tenuous patience. “I want to know what’s going on and I want to know it right now! Judge Travis, who are these people and what are they doing here?”

Travis sat up a little straighter in his chair at the head of the table, feeling inexplicably shamed by his agent’s lack of self-control. “You were told before coming down here, Agent Larabee,” he snapped back. “But this is Director Sam Smith of the FVI. I’m afraid I don’t know the names of his companions.”

“I’m Dr. Doug Ross,” Matt introduced himself. He noticed Buck frown and cocked and eyebrow at him. “Something wrong?”

Wilmington nodded slowly. “They keep calling you Matt.”

The doctor’s smile was genuine but not friendly. “So they do.”

“And I’m Tara Finletter, Chad’s wife, and I am also the director’s personal assistant,” Tara said.

“And since when is your name Chad?” Chris demanded of his grinning undercover agent, ignoring Travis’ warning look. “You called yourself that yesterday too. And for that matter, since when do you have a wife?”

“Since twelve glorious years ago,” Ezra answered smoothly. “And my name has been Chad Finletter since birth, if you must know. Ezra Standish is simply the name I’ve been using for this assignment.”

“And now that you know everyone’s name, let’s get down to brass tacks,” Director Smith rumbled. “I want an explanation, Judge Travis.”

“I wish I had one,” Travis replied heavily. “Agent Larabee came to me yesterday afternoon and told me that Agent Standish had killed a man in cold blood during what was supposed to be a preliminary meeting with a buyer, and that he had attempted to kill two more individuals who were fleeing the scene.”

“He was going to shoot them in the back,” Chris growled. “He __did__ shoot the other one in the back.”

Travis ignored him. “I was told that Agent Standish had been restrained and placed under arrest, and that after questioning had failed to produce a logical reason for the shooting he was taken to a holding cell after being allowed his one phone call, which he made to an Uncle Wilbur and conducted in a very suspicious manner. Under the circumstances I agreed that visitors should be restricted until we knew what was going on.” His jaw set. “I did not, however, authorize the extent to which Agent Larabee took that restriction.”

“Didn’t think you would have,” Smith said evenly. “I’m familiar with your record, Judge.” He ran his eyes over the men that comprised six of Team Seven, assessing them. “How many of these men were present yesterday while all this was taking place?”

“All of us,” Josiah told him, his deep voice dripping with guilt and self-disgust. “We were all there, sir.”

“And yet none of you spoke up?” The FVI director looked disgusted. “I know he’s your team leader, gentlemen, but he was breaking the law left and right – and against one of your own teammates, at that.”

“It wouldn’t have been smart to say anything,” JD answered him, earning himself a glare from Larabee that made him edge over in his seat. “When Chris gets angry like that…well, you have to shut up and stay out of his way, he’s dangerous when he’s that way.”

Buck sighed, glanced at Chris, and nodded. “The kid is right, you can’t cross Chris when he’s mad. You have to wait for him to calm down so it’s safe to approach him, then you can talk it out and he’ll see reason.”

“I see.” Smith’s dark gaze swung back to Travis, who looked like he’d just swallowed a lemon. “I suppose you’re going to say you didn’t know about this either?”

“I knew that Agent Larabee had some anger management issues.” The judge was weighing his words carefully. “But all the complaints came from other teams, not from any of his men. And he had an unusual team, I expected that sometimes unusual methods would be necessary to keep them in line.”

“In other words, you knew but you didn’t do anything about it because he got results,” Matt said scathingly. His own boss shook his head at him and the doctor adopted a more respectful tone. “Your pardon, Judge Travis, but you had to have known that a situation like this one would only get worse.”

“I had hoped it wouldn’t, I had faith in my men,” Travis said stiffly. Team Seven suddenly found the walls, ceiling and floor very interesting and worthy of their attention. “Director Smith, what exactly is it you want from me with regards to this situation?”

The other man smiled slightly. “I like a man who wants to get right to the point, but I don’t think we’re there yet.” He shifted in his chair. “Your agents are guilty of some very serious violations, Judge, and I want to be sure that we’re clear on that. Even putting aside their unlawful treatment of Agent Finletter, by not listening to his explanation of the situation they allowed two dangerous suspects to escape and enabled the destruction of evidence that would have allowed us to figure out what we were dealing with. I could demand their badges and end your career and you know it.” Travis nodded and said nothing. Smith shook his head. “I don’t want to do that, Judge; like I said before I know your record, and I don’t want to be the cause of you having to step down in disgrace. I do have to do something, though.”

“You have to put Standish or ‘Chad’ or whatever his name is back in his cell, for starters,” Chris said in a flat voice. “I don’t care who you are, he’s still under arrest for murder with the added charges of disobeying a direct order and compromising an investigation, maybe conspiracy too once we catch his accomplice.”

“Chris,” Travis ordered crisply. “Shut up and don’t open your mouth again unless someone asks you to. Those charges are all being dropped.”

“But they were all legitimate!” Nathan just couldn’t let that slide. “We have evidence, eyewitness testimony…”

“I read your report, Agent Jackson,” the judge countered. “I read all your reports this morning, actually, and I have to give most of you credit for sticking to the facts.”

“Pity they didn’t have all of them,” Smith grunted. “Agent Finletter, please present your version of yesterday’s events for us.”

The man so addressed leaned back in his chair and visibly went into professional mode. “Certainly, sir. Yesterday afternoon at 2:45pm I was scheduled to have a preliminary meeting with the front men for a potential buyer. They arrived early which I took as a sign that they were new to the game and their boss either hadn’t instructed them well or he simply didn’t care. Amateurs are always dangerous so I was being especially watchful, and that was what led me to notice the odd way the bodyguards were acting; what at any other time I might have taken for normal taciturnity I realized was actually a complete lack of expression save for the occasional hint of an animalistic snarl. The behavior pattern was immediately recognizable to me as that of a low-level Greenie…”

“That’s the second time you’ve said that,” Buck interrupted. “What the hell are you talking about, ‘Greenies’? Is that some sort of gang?”

The undercover agent ignored the interruption. “As I was saying, they were obviously low-level Greenies programmed only to follow orders and provide brute strength. I couldn’t be sure if the front man himself was a higher-level version or not but I knew I couldn’t take any chances either way, so I drew my gun and identified myself as a federal agent. I had my sights on the front man so the bodyguards froze in place but began to display even more telling mannerisms. It was at that point that my teammates burst in, but instead of helping to control the situation Agent Larabee grabbed hold of my shoulder and spun me around to face him, causing me to lose my bead and giving my prisoners an opportunity to attempt escape. I managed to re-aim and put down one of the bodyguards as he was getting away, but before I could fire on the other one I was tackled to the ground and forcibly relieved of my weapon. I yelled for someone to stop the suspects but no one complied…”

“Wait, Chad,” Smith requested. “Could one of you gentlemen tell me why the suspects weren’t detained just on general principals? After all, an authorized agent had identified himself to them and was holding them at gunpoint, why weren’t they held for questioning to clarify what was going on?”

“Chris ordered us not to.” Vin spoke up for the first time. “When Ez stopped talkin’ all of a sudden we knew something was wrong, but when he said he was a federal agent Chris swore and said that was it. I started to say that maybe Ez had recognized one of them or something, but Chris just said that the only thing wrong was that he had a worthless bastard for an undercover agent and to just let the other guys go ‘cause he wasn’t going to play along with Ezra’s shit.” His blue eyes met Ezra’s startled green ones and he nodded slightly. “I’m sorry, Ez; I should have spoke up sooner.”

His friend smiled. “I understand why you didn’t, Vin; like JD said earlier, it is unwise to go up against Mr. Larabee when he is in such a state. I don’t fault your silence in the least.” He cleared his throat. “To resume my statement, Agent Larabee then yanked me to my feet and slammed me up against the nearest wall while swearing at me profusely and making a wide range of accusations regarding my integrity and both personal and professional ethics. When Mr. Jackson informed him that the bodyguard was dead, he hit me and then ordered Mr. Wilmington to handcuff me while he read me my rights and placed me under arrest for murder and gross insubordination. Accusations continued to be made throughout our return to headquarters but I was not allowed to respond to any of them. The final assault on my person occurred in the interrogation room after I had made my phone call to Uncle Wilbur, apparently because Agent Larabee had not understood the conversation and I refused to explain it to him as he demanded. Mr. Jackson did attempt to verify that I was all right but was ordered away before he could reach me, and then Mr. Wilmington was told to take me to Holding and to inform the guards that I was to be allowed no visitors – Mr. Wilmington, by the way, attempted to remove my restraints but was unable to as they require a custom key instead of the interchangeable key used for standard handcuffs.” He cleared his throat again. “And, for the record, I resign my position as an ATF agent effective immediately.”

“Thank you, Agent Finletter,” Smith said quietly. “Consider your undercover assignment within the ATF to be terminated as of today as well.” He cast a pointed look at Travis. “Well?”

The judge shook his head; he couldn’t believe it, the man had managed to either directly or indirectly exonerate every member of Team Seven except for Chris in less than ten minutes. “Just to clarify, Director Smith, Agent S… _ _Finletter__ has been working within the ATF as an FVI undercover operative all this time?”

“It wasn’t our original intent,” the other man responded placidly. “Agent Finletter’s assignment within the FBI had been compromised and we were about to pull him out when he was approached by Agent Larabee about a departmental transfer. The FVI had no suspicions about your office, but it was decided that the transfer might draw out the leak in the FBI and so we went along with it in spite of…personal reservations.” He cocked an eyebrow at his undercover agent. “Chad, do you consider Agent Larabee to be responsible for his actions over the past twenty-four hours?”

The unequivocal ‘No’ even shocked Chris, but Smith just smiled slightly. “This week is the anniversary of the deaths of Agent Larabee’s wife and son, he is not himself.”

“And would you ever consider working with these gentlemen again?” His answer was a nod. “Good enough for me,” the director said. “Judge Travis, the FVI will not be filing any charges against you or any of the members of Team Seven.” He held up his hand to stop the judge from saying anything. “However, that is conditional.”

Travis schooled his features; it was more than he had hoped for this morning, after all. “Name them.” He shut several opening mouths with a look. “Gentlemen, and I do use that term loosely, we are in no position to bargain – I understand that even if you don’t. Director?”

“The remaining six members of Team Seven will be transferred to the FVI,” Smith said without preamble. “I will allow them to continue working as a unit under Agent Larabee, I won’t break up an efficient team; but I __will__ require Agent Larabee to undergo anger management therapy and he must complete it to my satisfaction to keep his job – a situation like this must never happen again.” He managed to lock eyes with every one of the men he was talking about. “Your boss is correct, you aren’t in any position to bargain. I checked all your records on the flight up here and you could be a real asset to the agency, but it’s either our way or no way at all.”

There was a long moment of thoughtful silence, then JD asked hesitantly, “Will Ez still be working with us?”

“He may at some point,” the director replied. “Our organization is fairly small compared to the ATF or the FBI. But Agent Finletter has been undercover for more than four years, and I am going to insist that he take at least a couple of months off after we track down the Greenies here in Denver.”

JD’s eyes widened, but he nodded. Slowly, one at a time, all the other men nodded too. “That’s settled then, the members of Team Seven will be transferred to the FVI.” He took a deep breath. “What about…”

“Nothing,” Smith said quietly. “I think you made a mistake any man in yours or my position could have made; you were looking at the big picture and forgot to check the little one, and this time it just happened to go very, very badly. I will want to retain access to your experience working with these men, though, if that’s acceptable to you.”

“I’d be glad to help.” Travis relaxed for the first time since his phone had rang at seven that morning. He looked at Larabee and then back to Smith with a determined expression. “I’d like to know what kind of therapy we’re talking about for Agent Larabee and how long it will last. In light of our new arrangement I…feel like I should tell you that so far traditional methods have been at best ineffective.”

The other man nodded. “Matt? You’re the expert.”

The doctor smiled. “Our methods are anything but traditional, but I can guarantee their effectiveness. It should take ten, maybe fifteen minutes tops.” His smile widened when the judge’s mouth dropped open and he shot a mischievous glance at the man sitting next to him. “I mean, it only took about a day to make Chad smart and he wasn’t exactly the brightest bulb on the tree to begin with, if you know what I mean.”

His friend returned the grin, not appearing offended in the least. “I was smarter than you.”

“ _ _I__ figured out how to use the machine…”

“ _ _I__ showed you how to work it in the first place…”

Matt folded his arms across his chest. “I made a porn movie with sixteen beautiful women and then became a doctor.”

Chad smirked and slid his good arm around Tara’s shoulders. “I married the perfect woman and became a secret agent.”

“I’m lost,” Buck said plaintively, looking from one man to the other. “You made a porn movie?”

“ _Big Breasted Girls Go to the Beach_ ,” Matt confirmed, and preened a little when Bucks’ eyes widened in awed recognition. “It was a little light on plot, but then it didn’t really need one. And it was while I was making it that I figured out the other use for the machine.”

“Only because Tara gave you the idea,” Chad put in with a wink. “But you did get the method of turning tomatoes into bimbos down to an art all by yourself.”

“Hey, they weren’t bimbos!” the other man protested. “They were just…not too bright and really demonstrative.”

“They were bimbos,” Tara contradicted him. “All they could do was jiggle and have sex in two positions. I, on the other hand, could make 813 international dishes and perform 637 se…”

Chad clapped a hand over her mouth. “Tara honey, if you finish that sentence Mr. Wilmington is going to lose all higher brain function and he has very little to begin with.”

“We can fix that too,” Matt offered innocently.

Chad snorted. “Obviously, it worked on you.”

“Boys.” The two men immediately subsided and Smith turned his attention back to Travis and Team Seven. “Two decades after Wilbur Finletter figured out how to defeat the giant man-eating tomatoes created by Professor Gangrene, his nephew Chad here accidentally discovered that the professor had refined the process and was making tomatoes that looked like human beings. We managed to put a stop to that plan there in our area, but Professor Gangrene escaped and continued his experiments with a variety of produce; we call them Greenies because they’re mostly vegetables. And you can sometimes spot one of them by their eyes, a chemical reaction due to the way they’re made causes their eyes to flash bright red on occasion.” Seeing the patent disbelief on several faces he nodded. “Difficult to understand without seeing it, I know. Tara, would you demonstrate, please?”

“Certainly, Director Smith.” Tara’s pretty blue eyes locked on Chris and suddenly flashed a demonically bright, inhuman red; the normally unshakeable team leader started back in his chair in shock and she smiled at him. “Shall I demonstrate again?”

“No, I think that proved my point, thank you Tara.” Smith smiled slightly himself. “Tara, by the way, is not a normal Greenie; we don’t know how Gangrene created her and apparently he doesn’t either because he’s never been able to do it again. And since Tara was gassed she’s locked in human form and is to all intents and purposes just a normal woman now.” Chad whispered something in his wife’s ear that made her blush and giggle. “What Matt figured out through playing around with the machine, however, was that the method used to implant specific programming in the tomato men could be adapted to work on humans as well.”

“Gangrene was able to give Tara some very __specific__ knowledge,” the doctor elaborated, manfully suppressing a smirk. “And he’d been able to make some tomato people that could impersonate other people, too. We played with it until we got it perfected for humans, so now we can implant information, provide behavioral modification, or program in the characteristics that let an undercover agent stay in character for long periods of time without slipping.”

“I’d wanted a British accent like James Bond,” Chad complained, making a face. “Instead he made me sound like Foghorn Leghorn.”

“You were going to Georgia, we wanted you to blend in,” Matt countered. “And now that the assignment is over you can lose the accent any time you want.”

Chad started to say something, but Tara was whispering in his ear and he suddenly flushed pink. “M-maybe we’ll hold off on getting the accent removed,” he stammered. “I…may have overlooked a possible reason for retaining it.”

“I thought you might say that,” the doctor replied, giving his friend a knowing wink before becoming all business again. “Actually, using the machine for behavioral modification works about the same way using hypnosis would, Agent Larabee, and it’s completely painless. You won’t even be able to tell we’ve done anything…”

“I haven’t said I agreed to let you,” Chris snapped.

No one was really surprised by the outburst and Director Smith actually smiled. “You remind me of Wilbur,” he said. “But Wilbur learned to control that black monster inside of him because he was raising Chad, and he didn’t have a machine to make it easy.”

The dig went home. “I don’t do things the easy way…”

“I do,” Smith interrupted, startling him. “I’m sure that with sufficient motivation you could learn to control yourself, but I’m not prepared to wait for lightning to strike. The ATF may have had time to coddle you because all you were doing was hunting down a few gun runners, but the FVI is in the business of saving the world and time is something we don’t normally have a lot of.” He let Chris chew on that and turned his attention elsewhere. “Agent Sanchez, you look like you have something on your mind.”

Josiah nodded slowly and looked at the young man he’d developed a fatherly feeling for with a frown on his face. “Who is Maude, then?” he asked.

“My mother, of course.” Chad sighed. “It is my educational history that is a fictitious but necessary part of my cover; Maude discovered me to be more of a hindrance than a help early on in my life and she subsequently dumped me on Uncle Wilbur, my father’s brother, at the tender age of eight. She did make an attempt a few years later to remove me from his care when one of her new husbands expressed the desire for a son, but the child welfare department informed her that her method of transferring me to my uncle’s custody had pretty much invalidated her parental rights and she left in a huff. I did not see or hear from her again until…until my first assignment with the FVI.” His pale skin had taken on a greenish tinge and he stood up abruptly, having to grab onto the table edge to keep his balance; Matt and Tara immediately stood up to support him. “If you gentlemen no longer have need of me…”

“The three of you go on ahead to our suite,” Smith ordered without hesitation. “I’ll join you once everything’s taken care of here. And Matt…”

“I know, I know,” the doctor said, rolling his eyes. “No pizza. It’s not like anyplace around here would make it for us anyway…”

“What do you mean, no place would make it for you?” JD interjected, confused. “There’s plenty of places that deliver pizza around here…”

“Not our kind,” Matt corrected with a small smile. “I’d say it was a pleasure to finally meet you boys…but it wasn’t, hopefully you’ll grow on me.”

Chad didn’t say anything and neither did his wife, but as they left the room Judge Travis could have sworn he saw Tara’s eyes flash red again as she looked in Chris's direction. He repressed a shudder and got back to the business at hand; six men who were sitting there in various states of shock because their seventh hadn’t said anything to them before he left. “Well what did you expect?” he reprimanded. “He let you all off the hook when he could have hung you out to dry, now he’s supposed to just act like the last eighteen hours never happened?”

“It will take him a while to get comfortable with all of you again,” Smith agreed quietly. “But rest assured he will; Chad has only held a grudge against two people in his entire life, Professor Gangrene and his mother – if you can call the woman that.” He snorted at the expression on Josiah’s face. “Fell for her, did you, Agent Sanchez? Well, you aren’t the first; that misfortune belonged to Chad’s father. Wilbur and I never did believe Edgar’s death was an accident, and after what she tried to do to Chad we were sure of it.”

“She broke his cover,” Vin supplied abruptly. Everyone stared at him and he dropped his head, focusing on the scarred tabletop that his hands were resting on. “We’d both had a bit too much to drink one night and I started tearin’ into him for bad-mouthin’ his ma, told him he was lucky to have her and he was a stupid bastard not to see it. He laughed at me in kind of a scary way and told me about how she’d broke his cover ‘to keep him sharp’, guess she damn near got him killed.”

“She did.” Director Smith shifted in his seat. “That was his first case with the FVI. We were in France…”

“Federal agents don’t have jurisdiction outside the U.S.,” Nathan interjected.

“The FVI isn’t a normal federal agency,” the older man countered smoothly. “We had tracked Gangrene to France and were trying to get close enough to him to trap him. Chad met up with Maude near the beginning of the operation, he’d known she was in France and he…well, he wanted to show off. He hadn’t seen her since he was ten and I think part of him wanted to rub her nose in it now that he was everything she’d said he never could be, and I’m pretty sure an even larger part was hoping she’d be proud of him and maybe even be sorry for casting him aside like she did.”

“Can’t blame him for wanting that,” Buck murmured, sharing a sad look with JD. His own mother had been the world to him and he couldn’t even imagine growing up without that warm, loving presence in his life; he knew the young computer expert felt the same. “But I’m guessin’ she didn’t give an inch.”

“She pretended to,” Smith said. “She even fooled me. I didn’t catch on that something was wrong until she started pressuring him to leave us and come away with her, apparently she had some scheme or other in mind and she thought he’d be useful. He told her no, pretty forcefully there at the end, and he didn’t leave any doubt as to what he thought of her.” He sighed heavily. “It was the same mistake his father had made. She waited until he was in deep and then blew his cover just as casually as you might swat a fly. Gangrene was experimenting with carrots at the time.”

“Ezra hates carrots,” Nathan observed slowly. “He says he has a violent reaction to them.”

“They had a violent reaction to __him__ ,” the director replied. “They almost killed him before we got there, that’s how he lost that tooth, as a matter of fact. It took him more than a month to recover physically and we finally had to use the machine to temper his reaction to carrots – just the sight of one would set him hyperventilating if not screaming hysterically. And when I finally got the opportunity to confront Maude with what she’d done do you know what she told me? She said if he’d been as smart as he thought he was it never would have happened and she hoped he’d learned his lesson about staying sharp. It didn’t seem to matter to her in the slightest that her son had been tortured for hours by those monsters before we were able to track them down.” He stood up abruptly. “I only explained this to you gentlemen for Chad’s sake, so you’d know where the minefield was and how to avoid it in the future. I don’t want to have any more ‘misunderstandings’ where he’s concerned.”

Judge Travis stood up as well. “I’m sure we appreciate the heads up, Director Smith. If you’re finished here, why don’t you and I go up to my office and complete the transfer paperwork for Team Seven?”

Smith nodded and the two of them moved toward the door, but the larger man turned back to his newly acquired agents before they started to leave the table. “I shouldn’t need to tell you all that everything we’ve talked about in this room is classified, and I have ways of handling security breaches that you wouldn’t appreciate," he warned. "You will all be contacted tonight so we can arrange a meeting tomorrow morning to discuss the Greenie problem here in Denver, and in the meantime I expect all of you to continue working on your current case like everything that happened over the course of the last day was just as it seemed. Judge Travis will get more information to you later on today.” His slight smile was cool and not entirely reassuring. “Welcome to the FVI, gentlemen.”


	3. Chapter 3

Team Seven, six men strong, had left the conference room and gone back up to their office in silence, but the silence lasted barely five minutes. After the necessary reports and work had been finished – no one wanted to antagonize the judge again – Josiah had told them everything he remembered about the largely unbelievable tomato incident he’d been present for in California all those years ago. He’d never met any of the principle players, though, and he knew next to nothing about the second war. Not to mention that they all had questions they wanted answered about their missing seventh man. So JD had gotten online and they’d started digging for information.

What they found surprised everyone, even Josiah. ‘Uncle Wilbur’ was Wilbur Finletter, hero of the first Tomato Uprising and a prominent local business owner. He’d also been Chad Finletter’s court-appointed guardian for most of the boy’s life, his acquisition of that role having apparently coincided with the beginning of the pizza business he was now famous for.

That had been a shocking story, even just as taken from the court documents that had awarded guardianship. Maude had put her eight year old son on a cross-country bus and told him he was going to stay with his uncle, providing for his care on the journey with a five dollar bill and a warning to tell anyone who asked that his mother was meeting him at the next stop. He’d arrived in California hungry, scared and broke, had asked at a gas station for directions to Wilbur Finletter’s house and had literally shown up on the man’s doorstep.

Wilbur Finletter, veteran hero of a war most people didn’t believe had happened, was known at that time as a bitter, angry man who drank heavily in an attempt to drown the demons that still plagued him. Chad was his late brother’s son, whisked away by his mother years earlier after Edgar’s sudden death, and Wilbur hadn’t seen him since he was a toddler. He’d known those eyes, though, when he saw them looking up at him in trepidation from that pale, thin face; they were Edgar’s eyes. Wilbur had sobered up in a hurry, and stayed sober. He’d fed the frightened boy, cleaned him up, and carefully drawn the story out of him. The anger that bubbled up after hearing it he used to slap his neglected house back into order while Chad slept in his bed. Then he’d called on his friends for help, the men who’d been with him during the war, and when Chad woke up after nearly twelve hours of exhausted sleep he’d had clothes, toys, and a new extended family who promised that Maude would never get hold of him again.

When Wilbur had found out about the carrots, it had taken Sam and Barry knocking him out to stop him booking a flight to France to kill Maude. They knew, though, that if she ever got within his reach she was as good as dead. And after reading the FVI report about the carrot incident, most of the men of Team Seven felt the same way.

Most…because no one really knew what Chris was thinking. Chris still wasn’t talking.

 

The call came in at eight that night, when everyone but Chris was piled up at Buck and JD’s place and still talking about tomato men and killer carrots while they watched Buck’s copy of _Big Breasted Girls Go to the Beach_ and pondered their new FVI security clearance that had let JD access all those classified files in the first place. It was Smith himself calling, surprisingly, and even more surprisingly he knew that they were all there.  He instructed them to be at the hotel – without giving them the exact suite number – the next morning at nine, and then hung up.

They showed up en masse at the Hilton at 8:55. Hotel security, apparently forewarned, demanded to see their ID and then ushered them into a secure elevator that took Team Seven up to a penthouse suite.  Dr. Ross met them at the doors. “Right on time,” he said. “Director Smith is taking care of business. Come on in and find a place to sit, he might be a while.”

The main area they walked into was bright and open, its heavy curtains pulled back from floor-to-ceiling windows to reveal a panoramic view of the Rockies.  Ezra – or rather, Chad – was sprawled comfortably on one of the suite’s plush overstuffed couches while his wife played with his hair and fed him grapes. He grinned lazily at them but didn’t bother to change position. “Gentlemen.”

There was a hesitant murmur of greetings, and a few of the men looked to Ross, who shrugged. “Hey, as long as he’s eating and they’re not having sex, I have no complaints. They’ve been like this since they first got together twelve years ago, you’ll just have to get used to it.”

“Not sure it’s somethin’ we _can_ get used to,” Nathan grumbled, shaking his head. “Man ain’t never wanted anything to do with the opposite sex before…”

“Not sure I would either, if I knew I had a woman like the one he’s got waitin’ for me,” Buck interrupted. “Get the stick out of your ass, Nate; you’re just pissed off because he one-upped you again.”

“You don’t know that…”

“Yeah, we do.” Vin gave the chemist a disgusted look. “Just because high and mighty you screwed around on his woman doesn’t mean the rest of us are faithless bastards who can’t control their dick either.”

“Vin,” Sanchez scolded lightly. He’d hoped Chris would intervene - he had in the past when it came to this particular argument - but their team leader had retreated into tight-lipped angry silence and stayed that way. He sighed and stepped further into the room with a smile for the man on the couch. “Brother, a man could be jealous of treatment like that.”

Chad’s grin widened but he didn’t say anything. Tara raised one perfect eyebrow at Josiah. “You are jealous of Chad?”

“At the moment, yes.” The older man settled himself into a nearby chair. “How are you feeling, Ezra?”

“He’s feeling concussed,” Matt answered flatly before his friend could swallow the grape he’d been eating – not that he looked like he was in any hurry to do so. “And his name is _Chad_ , Chad Finletter. I realize it’s going to take you all a while to get used to that, but you won’t if you don’t start making the effort, okay?”

Josiah’s head dipped briefly in assent. “My apologies, brother, I wasn’t thinking. How long have the two of you known each other?”

“Since he moved in with his uncle, we were both eight,” Matt told them.  He raised an eyebrow when the older man grimaced. “Ah, someone’s been checking files. Leave it, okay?  All of it,” he warned. “The past is the past, mostly I find it’s better just to let it stay where it fell. Kapish?”

The other men started finding places of their own to sit, except for Chris who walked over to the windows and looked out, apparently ignoring everyone in the room. “He’s watching us,” Buck told Matt and Tara. “He’s just usin’ the reflection to do it. Hasn’t said word one to any of us since yesterday except for yes, no, and ‘shut the fuck up, Buck’.”

“And this is different from normal why?” Vin wanted to know. He pulled a bag of M&Ms out of his pocket and started eating them. “So do you all still live in California?”

“We do,” Tara told him. “Chad and I have a house near the beach.”

“And I have a house next to his house,” Matt added. “I used to live in Chicago, but it’s just too damned cold there all the time. I can live with the earthquakes.”

Chad laughed. “Not to mention, Carol likes the private beach.”

“Carol, my wife, and yes she does. We both do,” Matt explained. He arched a very superior eyebrow at his friend. “And I know someone else who likes the private beach – in the nude, in the middle of the night, doing something I think is illegal in most states. What I wouldn’t have given for a camera that night…”

“Why, so you could try to get up to my standard?”

Matt reached over and stole one of his grapes. “You know, if you weren’t hurt, buddy of mine…I would call my wife and tell her you said that.”

“Your wife would laugh at you and ask if I was right.” Chad accepted another grape himself, casting a sidelong look over at his former teammates as he chewed and swallowed. “You know, you gentlemen could, I don’t know…talk?”

“I don’t think anyone knows what to say, Ez…I mean, Chad,” JD corrected himself. He’d found a place to sit on the floor and had been watching the byplay between the two old friends with wide eyes. This was a side of Ezra he'd never seen before. “We…we really let you down.”

Chad sat up, wincing as he did even with Tara helping him. “Yes, you did,” he said.  That got him some surprised looks, and he shook his head.  “What, you thought I was going to say it was all right?  That everything was rosy?  It isn’t.  We all could have gotten killed the other day, that isn’t all right.  Two dangerous…things got away, that isn’t all right either. And you gentlemen basically all lost your jobs, your careers, because you were afraid to stand up to Mr. Larabee.” He looked over at the stiff figure in black and frowned. “That most certainly isn’t all right – especially since I _know_ he hasn’t apologized to any of you for it.”

“We’ve got some responsibility in that too, E…Chad,” Buck corrected. “We went along with him when we knew we shouldn’t have, seems to me we sort of did in our own jobs right then and there.”

“And we betrayed you,” Vin added, putting his candy away. “We turned on one of our own, that ain’t right either.  I’m surprised you’re even talkin’ to us.”

“I did say I would be willing to work with you again,” Chad responded, shrugging and then wincing again when the movement hurt his shoulder.  “And as we are in the same room, it would be not only unprofessional but also rather childish of me to refuse to speak to you.”

Everyone looked at Chris, who still hadn’t moved or turned around.  Smith chose that moment to come out of one of the bedrooms, not looking happy. “We have no leads on Gangrene right now,” he said without preamble. “The ones who got away haven’t been spotted yet, and I called in a few other agents to help us. Chad, how much are you up to doing?”

“I’m just waiting for the pills to kick in,” the undercover agent told him. “Then we can go out looking for them.”

“No hand to hand, though,” Matt warned.

“No hand to hand,” Chad agreed.  He rubbed his side and made a face. “Cracked just needs a little encouragement to become broken, I know.”

“I know you know, I’m just making sure you don’t conveniently forget,” his friend told him.  “When will our backup be here?”

“I had to pull them in from New York,” Sam said. “So until then,” he waved a hand at the men of Team Seven, “this is your backup. I have to go meet with someone now, but as soon as Chad is ready I want you all to get busy. We need to clean up this mess before it gets any bigger, and we don’t know if Gangrene is in the city or not.”

“You want _us_ to be Ezra’s backup?” Nathan looked like he couldn’t believe his ears; the rest of the men looked about the same. “You’re trustin’ us after…”

“You’re law enforcement officers with excellent records,” Smith interrupted him sharply. “Your team had an excellent reputation up until two days ago. Anyone can make a mistake, gentlemen,” he admonished. “Just because yours hung you out to dry doesn’t make it any more than that. And your reputation tells me you won’t make the same one twice.”

“No, I think we learned our lesson,” Josiah rumbled, making a face.

“We can do backup,” Vin added firmly. “Might as well start earnin’ our keep.”

That seemed to be enough for Smith. The older man turned his attention to Matt. “How long?”

“Painkillers should kick in in about, oh, another half hour,” the doctor told him. He jerked a thumb in Larabee’s direction. “Do I have to take that one too?”

“Yes.”  That was apparently all he needed to say about it; the doctor accepted the order with a nod. Smith smiled slightly. “Tara, are you ready?”

Tara pulled her husband’s head around so she could kiss him…and kept on kissing him long enough for the men of Team Seven to get embarrassed, although Matt and Smith seemed to take it in stride. She stood up gracefully, with a last caress to her husband’s cheek. “I am ready, Director. Be careful, Chad.”

“Oh, I will,” Chad responded dreamily. He opened his eyes. “You be careful, Tara. Denver is a windy city.”

“I will be careful, Chad. I am an excellent pilot.”

“That she is,” Smith agreed. He shook a warning finger at his undercover agent. “Don’t overdo it, boy, I mean it. Your uncle’s gonna be out for my blood as it is. Come on, Tara.”

Chad closed his eyes again once they’d left the suite, letting himself sink even further into the soft couch. Matt got up, got himself some coffee and then came back. “You boys can help yourselves,” he said, waving toward the suite’s kitchen area. “We’ve still got some leftovers from breakfast in there too, might as well eat them so they don’t go to waste.” He cocked an eyebrow at Vin. “And they’ll be a little more nutritious than M&Ms.”

“Just don’t go near the toaster.” Chad issued the warning without opening his eyes. “Don’t _touch_ the toaster.”

Matt chuckled into his coffee. “Right, touching the toaster would be a bad idea. But anything else, go for it.”

“I could stand some breakfast,” Buck said. He stood up and slapped Vin’s arm. “Come on, Tanner – you too, JD. If we’re gonna be pounding the pavement later, we need to eat more than coffee and candy.”

“Amen to that, brother.” Josiah got up too, stretching. Chris still hadn’t moved, and the big profiler looked at him and shook his head before trailing the younger men into the kitchen.

What they found surprised them. Bacon, sausage, eggs, waffles, fruit and toast – __lots__ of toast – had evidently comprised the morning’s breakfast, although the kitchen itself was as spotless as though it had never been used. Matt’s voice drifted up to them as they stood staring at the food. “Hope none of you have trouble with your cholesterol. Tara couldn’t find the brand of turkey sausage she likes, that’s the real thing.”

“I think we’re all okay with it,” Buck called back. Nathan had joined them, and he glanced over at the health-conscious chemist. “Be okay with it, Nate.”

Nathan just stared, mostly at the neat stacks of toast. “Guess his wife likes to cook,” Vin observed with a shrug, getting a plate and starting to fill it up. “C’mon, guys, don’t look a gift horse in the mouth.”

Nobody was inclined to, although Josiah had eyed the stacked toast with a grimace. It was all too easy to forget when interacting with her that the beautiful woman their friend was apparently married to – for the past twelve years, no less – was, in fact, not human.

 


End file.
